


The Heart of Darkness

by flandersmare



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 3 years as a dead man, Gen, Pining, Post-Reichenbach, humanitarian work, sub-saharan african politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 14:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flandersmare/pseuds/flandersmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's can no longer remember what Euston Station sounds like and it scares him. </p><p>It has almost been three years now, since he gripped Molly's arms and rested his blood soaked forehead on her thin shoulder and thanked and begged her in equal measure in a hurried, hoarse voice. Since that day at Bart's, he's set foot on nearly every continent and worn more faces and answered to more named that he can care to remember. Moriarty is dead, but the body of the spider still twiches. Shelock has walked the earth, taking out Moriarty's people and organisations as he goes. He's close now, he can so nearly go home. But he looks in the mirror and doesn't know himself any more. So much of him was left behind in 221B. He just needs to find his contact, a Mary Morstan, for information on the man who, three years ago, had Doctor John Watson in the cross-hairs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart of Darkness

Sherlock's can no longer remember what Euston Station sounds like and it scares him. It's been nearly three years. Three long years since he's left England, London, 221B and John. His world has become warring body clocks and time zones, truly foul cigarette smoke and stolen passports. Foreign languages are now thick on his tongue, as is the blood on his hands. But he's almost there. At least he thinks he is on one level or another. But he doesn't think he'll recognise the man who will make it back to Baker Street wearing his face.

He pushes the maudlin thoughts aside, along with over hanging vegetation blocking his way as he followed the chain link fence along. These swirling black moods were different from what he was once used to. He was putting his new found dispositions down to the anti-malarials that have been weaving in and out of his system whenever he could get his hands on some. He shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of the light weigh tan jacket he picked up only God knows where now. There was 4 continents worth of wear and tear showing on it now. He passes through a ripped hole in the chain link masquerading as a sentry post and steps around a blank eyed woman moving in the opposite direction to him. The sprawling shanty town of squat tents and rusting corrugated iron greets him as soon as he’s through the fence, lapping at the edge of the compound like the surf on a beach. Sherlock lets his fingers trail over a broken pump head, noting the discoloured stagnant pool at its’ base. UN issued canvas tents stood fading and wilting in the sun. Fallen vegetation from the jungle beyond the fence lay decomposing in piles on the slack canvas. Disrepair and uncared for. But there’s evidence of the low UN concrete structure, sporting the visage of ‘Active in Africa’ on it’s cracked and peeling side, has been cannibalised for parts. Disrepair and uncared for, but defiant. 

Sherlock snorts and wondered into the maze before him, only admitting defeat when he passes the same line of washing for the 4th time just shy of 3 hours later. He stands, drawing himself stiff and tall and turns his face to the sky. His eyes slip close and he willed patience, fighting the roiling in his blood. There is roaring in his ears but he doesn't have the strength for a fit of pique. He flops down where she stands onto the dust earth and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. He rests his elbow on his drawn up knees before raking his sweat sodden fringe away from his face. He was breathing between clenched teeth and trying to calm. Calm. Morning tea, violin music, John, home. Oh God, home. John.

Movement in front of him has him coiled like a spring within the second. But it is only a little girl. 

12 years old. In what was once a pretty sun dress in yellow. One on the many rape victims. Wasn't rescued though, fought her way out. Picked up by relief workers. Was pregnant. Lost the baby. Older brother still not accounted for. She knows exactly where he is, what he is doing and what he is becoming. 

'Need boss lady?' Her voice is quiet but Sherlock finds himself cataloguing the similarities between it and native bird songs. His throat worked silently but after a moment he nods mutely and honours her bravely outstretched hand with giving over his own. He staggers up and she tugs him forward, bare feet finding their way unerring around the debris embedded in the dirt. His little guide trots ahead of him, greeting the frighten gazes of so many women and children with a proud chin held high. Sherlock keeps his eyes down, concentrating on where her strong little fingers were clamped around his bandaged wrist. The white cotton is now yellowed with sweat and grim and Sherlock quietly cursing himself for not raiding more supplies from the officials’ offices during the chaos that reigned in the last hours of Kony's life as a protected man in Uganda.

They halt in front of another tent. British Army surplice. Old but well maintained in the circumstance. The girl drops his hand and disappears back into the maze of canvas and living bodies without a word before he can thank her, never mind finding something suitable as payment on his person. But his thanks follow her, even if he never voices it. That was another thing he's learnt for himself over the last three years. Words unsaid, you’ll still mean them and they’ll still weigh you down.

Sherlock squares his shoulders and pushes the musty tent flap up. He steps into the cooler, shaded interior and blinks hard in the sudden gloom. There is two people in here with him, that much he knows. As his eyes adjust, he sees several trestle tables pushed together in the middle of the tent, a decrepit looking map spread over the resulting uneven surface. Yellowed and held together with peeling cello tape, two women are standing over it, looking at it from opposite sides of the table. The woman who has her back to him is small, petit he would say, pale skin starting to lose the raw red of burn and caramelising into tan, with long dark hair volumised by the humidity in the air. The woman opposite him has his full attention however. Black, powerfully built and beautiful in the same way lightning storms and forest fires are beautiful, she has a hand gun trained on him over her companion's head. Sherlock lets the tent flap fall back into place and slowly raises his hands.

'State your name and business,' the woman says. Voice deep and lyrical and in no way a question.

'My name is Victor Trevor,' Sherlock says, remembering the correct alias on the Irish passport. 'I've been in contact with a Mary Morstan? She was invaluable whilst I was involved in,' he chooses his words delicately, ‘recent governmental proceedings.' Which entailed the exposure of officials native and international involved in the cover up of the abduction, rape and brainwashing of thousands of children in the name of rebel cause. When Sherlock had at last fled the blast zone of Moriarty's last toppled domino, 2 officials had committed suicide, 1 had killed his family then shot himself, and 4 more were currently detained by the UN and a number of international agencies. 'I'm here for the location of one Sebastian Moran.'

The woman with her side arm trained on him has not moved but the dark haired woman has stiffed, her knuckles turning white on the table top and her shoulders hunching about her ear Casting Sherlock a calculating look, the armed woman shots her companion a troubled look. 'Mary? You know him?'

Sherlock looked closely at Mary for the first time. She holds herself with a poise even as she leaned over a rickety table. Her shape is so familiar though. Sherlock is desperately trying to place her, running over the numbers in his head. The disguise....

'Well, the good die young I suppose,' she says, straightening and pulling her unmanageable hair over her shoulder as she turns to face him. 'But clearly the great refuse to stay dead.' There before him, dishevelled and dirty and his unknown guiding light through the kill house of sub-Saharan dictatorship headquarters, stands the indomitable Irene Adler. The Woman smiled at him. 'It's been too long Mister Holmes.'  


**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've published on this wonderful site, please be gentle.
> 
> The title is a nod to Joseph Conrad's 1899 short novel. I studied it during GCSE English literature and the ideas of losing yourself and how you once saw yourself in the otherworldly-ness of the thick, oppressive nature of the African rainforest kind of stuck. Whilst Kurtz in 'Heart of Darkness' embraced and revelled in the lawlessness and anonymity, to my mind Sherlock was as listless and lost as John before they met, and his journey through the heart of darkness leaves him lonely and scared of not knowing himself any longer. I could see him functional but lost with out John.
> 
> This story is the result of a plot bunny that bit me before all the bits and pieces of series 3 started showing up and ruining our lives again. But this is a plot bunny has bitten and run off again as they are so often do and I've stalled. Hopefully the ideas will come back. Mainly stemmed from the fact that I wanted Irene's character to be more that what was given to her in Scandal. She is a very intelligent woman, and I couldn't see her going into hiding quietly. And whilst she is see as cold and manipulative for most of Scandal and her weakness to love being her downfall, I reckon once you have earned her affection, she would have a caring and pretective streak a mile wide and fathoms deep. And I think Sherlock has earned a begruding place in her heart. 
> 
> Basically I just wish Moffet had developed her like Whedon and his team developed Black Widow. 
> 
> So, this is how I think Irene would be spending her time and energies. And exorcising a demon or two, I'm working on her back story in my head.
> 
> Constructive feedback would be very warmly welcomed as this is unbeta'ed. Hate will be pouted at and then thrown on the fire to heat the tea kettle.


End file.
